Former Major League Baseball Commissioner and Waterbury native Fay Vincent said Monday that current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver should take his time before reacting to the very difficult situation created by racial comments allegedly made by NBA owner Donald Sterling of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Vincent, baseball's commissioner from 1989-92, said he doesn't feel it would be appropriate for him to comment on the alleged racist remarks or what type of punishment he thinks is warranted, because he doesn't have enough facts. He did say that rushing to judgment can be very dangerous.

"I think this is unfortunate," Vincent said. "It sounds like it is a very ugly and bad scene, but I think we ought to wait, proceed slowly and let the facts unfold. If the media and all of us in sports have anything to learn from the Duke lacrosse case, it is that a rush to judgment is always ill-advised."

In 2006, a woman accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape. A year later, the North Carolina Attorney General dropped all charges in the case. Vincent, 75, said the Duke case provided plenty of reason to cautiously examine all the facts rather than rashly dole out punishment.

He said Silver and the NBA owners should proceed cautiously rather than cave in to public sentiment and simply force the Clippers' owner to sell his team.

"You can't force an owner to sell his team, especially when he hasn't done anything criminal," Vincent said. "Secondly, the other owners are going to worry very much about what could happen to them. So even though they may feel this was a pretty stupid thing or a series of things for him to say, they will want to wait. They will want to know his side, and I think the ultimate solution will be an agreement that may take a while to work out, in which he sells the team and gets out."

Vincent said it isn't in the best interest of the owners in any professional sports league to force one of its own into a fire sale. Ultimately, they have to look out for their own interests.

"And the commissioner is not going to want to end up in court, because this fella has just talked," Vincent said. "He hasn't stolen any money. He hasn't engaged in tax fraud. He hasn't cheated anybody. He talked. And, by and large, people can get away with talking. Now this is a very tough subject, race in this country, but I think that the whole process will move a lot slower than people think, largely because nobody is going to want to go too quickly, least of all Sterling. He is not going to want to move quickly, because that can only result in him selling the team when he doesn't want to sell it."

Vincent said that league commissioners operate in a strange environment, because the owners control the game and have the power to fire them.

"And I think every owner worries about how he is going to get out," Vincent said. "Every owner knows that at some point he is going to want to sell, and they don't want to have any precedent established that puts them in a position where somebody like a commissioner can try to force them out."

Vincent had some experience dealing with an owner who had to be severely punished for misconduct detrimental to the game. He suspended Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for two years for hiring someone to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield after Winfield had sued Steinbrenner for failure to pay a foundation $300,000 guaranteed in his contract.

Vincent said his suspension of Steinbrenner was different, because the facts were carefully documented and indisputable.

"Steinbrenner never denied what happened," Vincent said. "He admitted that he had done everything that I knew he had done with Dave Winfield. The only question with Steinbrenner was not did he do it or did I have all the facts. We had a hearing and I had everything. There was just one question: What was the appropriate punishment?"

Vincent said he told Steinbrenner he was going to suspend him for two years. Steinbrenner asked if he could just leave baseball for life without an official suspension so that he could work with the U.S. Olympic Committee at the time. A year and a half later, Steinbrenner wanted back into baseball, and ultimately Vincent allowed him back after two years once he dropped all lawsuits against Vincent.

"Needless to say he never thanked me, because he was really furious," Vincent said, "but the fact of the matter was I was right, it was two years and that is what it called for."

Follow Us

Post a reader comment

We encourage your feedback and dialog. Please be civil and respectful.If you're witty, to the point and quotable, your reader comments may also be included on the Around the Towns page of The Sunday Republican. Readers must be registered and logged in to post comments on the site. Registration is free. Click Here to register.
A Subscription is not required to post comments only a Registration.